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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2018 13:16:04 GMT -5
I'm thinking here of things like PS2 Shinobi and its complicated combo kill system making late boss battles extremely difficult because it's so hard to pull off. Mostly, I'm thinking of a game I've been trying to play since yesterday, an obscure PS2 hack-n-slash called Code of the Samurai released only in Japan an Europe. You see, the battle system revolves entirely around a very tricky, timing-based evade-and-counterattack mechanic that would work as an advanced technique in any other game. Simply walking up to an enemy and hitting it is useless, because they automatically block all your hits and they do nearly no damage, anyway. What you have to do, and the game acknowledges this in its barebones tutorials, is wait for an enemy to attack, dodge at just the right moment by pressing the direction that appears along with X, then launch right away into a series of timing-specific attack strings which you may then top off with a special technique that requires pressing a series of button within a short time-frame. Again, this is just the normal mechanic your are supposed to use on every enemy you meet, and the game expects you to perform all that garbage by the middle of the first mission. I have a hard time dodging most attacks in the first place - I've always sucked at and hated QTEs, and for some reason dodging backwards works but dodging to the side never does -, so trying to play this is incredibly tedious, and I've pretty much given up. It's a RED game published by Sega in Japan, so I didn't expect it to be borderline unplayable.
What are other examples of games like that (sticking to action games since complexity is to be expected in, say, strategy games)?
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Post by dsparil on Jan 9, 2018 14:49:16 GMT -5
This is more of a control problem, but in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, there's an early-ish boss that I could only beat randomly because you're supposed to wall run and jump behind him or something but I could never pull it off accurately. Never had an issue with Warrior Within or Two Thrones.
I could never finish Borderlands because the second main area pretty much requires coop early on. You have to fight a bunch of vehicles in one of your own, but driving and controlling the turret are separate positions even though they could easily both be handled by one person with a slightly tweaked control scheme.
For something that's actually complicated gameplay instead of control gripes, the weapon fusion in Kid Icarus: Uprising is very complicated and not really explained in depth. I accidentally ended up with a good weapon which I kept and never modified.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 9, 2018 14:51:28 GMT -5
From HG101 article on Shadow Force:
And Brandish games:
Personally, i think a grappling hook in Bionic Commando games is a 'love it or hate it' situation too.
Some dedicated simulators should have reasonably complicated controls as well.
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Post by phediuk on Jan 9, 2018 15:55:11 GMT -5
Clicking the sticks to boost in Gunvalkyrie.
wtf were they thinking?
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Post by backgroundnoise on Jan 9, 2018 16:12:03 GMT -5
If FPS/ARPGs count in the category specified by the thread title, then E.Y.E.:Divine Cybermancy is as incomprehensible as they come. Aside from that, maybe fighting games (except Smash Bros.) for those that aren't great at them (I can't input quarter circle motions consistently to save my life).
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 9, 2018 16:15:27 GMT -5
Alien Soldier is the first one that comes to my mind. It has a rather complex control scheme for a side-scrolling run'n'gun, especially for its day and age, with stuff like running upside-down, hanging mid-air, shooting while walking backwards, teleporting from one corner to another, etc., as well as various details that add to complexity, be it an ability to execute a powerful move with your teleport when your health is full, or how your damage output depends on how much ammo you have. Thankfully, it's all brilliantly executed, so once you go through somewhat steep difficulty curve, all the stuff above becomes a second nature, and it's a lot of fun to play.
Hellsinker, a doujin shooter, isn't that complex in itself if playing casually (hard as nails, but not hard to play), but it has an absurdly complicated scoring system, with 3 different kinds of score and 10 bars on the heads-up display, each with at least one type of item that affects them. Fully understanding how the thing works in the first place is probably harder than completing the game itself, really.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Jan 9, 2018 18:30:28 GMT -5
I struggle to think of an example where there isn't a payoff in the end once you get used to the mechanics. Maybe some fighting games with long combos and unforgiving timing in the context of playing with people who aren't as into it as you are so it ends up not that fun for either person.
Edit: I remember playing Soulstar for MCD in emulation so that I could play it in 2-player mode on one controller, because this let me map the buttons in a much more user friendly way on a dual shock. But it's more that what they probably wanted to do couldn't quite be done on a MD controller.
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Post by GamerL on Jan 9, 2018 21:12:07 GMT -5
Clicking the sticks to boost in Gunvalkyrie. wtf were they thinking? I tried to play Gunvalkyrie last year and yeah, the controls just ruin it, other than that it's a really cool game but so much potential wasted by bad controls.
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Post by 1upsuper on Jan 9, 2018 21:27:48 GMT -5
As nerdybat said, Alien Soldier is a really good example.
Umihara Kawase has a high skill ceiling and there's a lot of advanced tech you can do with just two buttons.
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Post by Ace Whatever on Jan 10, 2018 4:02:59 GMT -5
Dunno if this counts but in Silent Bomber you can only attack but shooting or laying sticky bombs then detonating them remotely. That's fine for most of the game but in the more hectic sections like the protect mission and the final boss you have to get really good at rapidly locking on to your target and shooting bombs while dodging around because you can't move your targeting cone independent of your movement direction.
In Deception IV (another game where you don't have a direct attack) there's a mechanic where you have to hit an enemy with a specific sequence of traps in order to reduce their defense or even damage them at all in the case of bosses. The timing and trap placement for the sequence tends to be very strict and if you miss even once you have to dodge attacks until the trap cooldown finishes or run to another room and set it up again.
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Post by Exhuminator on Jan 10, 2018 12:41:37 GMT -5
Clicking the sticks to boost in Gunvalkyrie. wtf were they thinking? I came to post this. Gunvalkyrie is a poster child for this topic.
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Post by GamerL on Jan 11, 2018 7:36:27 GMT -5
Is Gunvalkyrie one of the biggest examples of wasted potential in gaming history? If only the controls were a bit better it'd be pretty great, I love the "Victorians in space" theme (how many games do you know of where you play as a turn of the century Irish girl with a jetpack?)
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Post by toei on Jan 13, 2018 16:05:22 GMT -5
So I just had a major realization concerning the game that spawned this thread... The reason it's so hard to play isn't because it was poorly designed or overly tricky, it's all down to the fact that it's a PAL release running at 50fps. This really hampers the timing on dodging and combos, and since those two elements drive the gameplay, it effectively ruins the game. In the original, if you input the evade maneouver as soon as you can upon seeing the warning signs, it works with no trouble. In the slowed down PAL release, an input at the same speed will register as too early and you will often fail, so you have to wait for a few frames, which often results in getting hit because you've waited too long. Similarly, the normal timing for the combos is easy enough to pull off, while the PAL version adds lengthens the pause between each movement, leading to an unnatural timing that is much harder to grasp. Of course, just the fact that it moves faster makes the original much more fun and satisfying, while the PAL release seems a little tedious and overlong even when things are going right.
So there you have it, it was the PAL curse again. Code of the Samurai is pretty bad; Shinsengumi Gunrou-Den is fun.
EDIT - I knew about about PS2 PAL games running at 50fps unless they came with a 60fps option, I just didn't realize how much it would destroy the game's balance.
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Post by elektrolurch on Jan 16, 2018 7:54:18 GMT -5
The question itself, for me, is kinda tricky because it comes down to two things:what constitutes an action game, and what makes gameplay tricky or complicated?Do cumbersome,complicated controls count?
As for the first part of the question: At first, I thought of the original Deus Ex and System Shock 1+2. All great games in their own right, sure, nothing to argue there. But when I first played them when they were new, they seemed very complicated to me and took a lot of time getting used to. I guess one of the reasons is that I expected them to be more like "traditional" FPSes. I knew about rpgs at the time, I just did not expect it in games with such a setting that look and feel like that.. Plus esp. with System Shock 1, the controls themselves make it cumbersome and tricky to play, which brings me to the second part of my question..
Games with cumbersome controls. My first thought was Flashback:Fade to Black, which always seemed borderline unplayable to me, but that is a fate a lot of third person 3D games from that time. Even Tomb Raider,to a lesser extent, which was my second thought.....and,well,basically, a lot of early DOS/Amiga 3D games from the late 80ies. Think of Hunter,for instance..
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